French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Melding form with function, French-door refrigerators offer elegant double doors that open up to a spacious fridge up the top and a freezer drawer beneath. Special features such as through-the-door dispensers, higher-end ice machines and flex drawers that can be customized make them stand out from the crowd.
We asked experts like Ladina Schopf, an interior designer, architect, and founder of LS Projects, for tips on choosing the right model. They weighed the capacity of storage and layout, energy efficiency, and other factors.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The name implies that the GE Profile series is geared towards those who want to incorporate cutting-edge features into their kitchen. This refrigerator is packed with these, from an inside-the-door Keurig K-cup coffee maker to a smart water dispenser. But these flourishes don't mask mediocre performance, especially in the refrigerator's freezer and an ineffective temperature-controlled drawer. This refrigerator is costly and I expected more.
Aside from that blip, this fridge is a great choice. It has a large freezer compartment, which is quite uncommon in counter-depth French door refrigerators. Additionally, it holds a fair amount of frozen food when compared to similar models.
Inside the fridge, there are 17 shelves and compartments. The refrigerator compartment has 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is roughly on the same as a French door fridge that costs this much. It also has a decent-sized icemaker packed into the left-hand door, although it's not the largest I've seen.
You can adjust the shelves in both compartments for an individual storage solution. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS is attractive. Its LED lighting is a nice touch, and the in-door storage bins come with the third shelf, which folds up beneath itself to allow you to store tall items. The drawers have temperature controls so that you can set them to Beverage, Meat or Deli settings. The drawers are simple to shut and open, but I found the plastic's textured coatings a bit hard on my fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator comes with all the features you would expect from a refrigerator in this price range. This includes Wi-Fi as well as app support, and GE's SmartHQ Software. The app is available on iOS and Android devices and allows you to control your refrigerator from anywhere around the world. It also offers many options for customization. It will also send you notifications when the door is left unlocked and when the fridge or freezer must be defrosted and when the filter needs to be changed.
It would be nice if GE PYE22PYNFS came with Precise Fill, an option available in a handful of other GE fridges that allow you to set the number of cups of water you'd like to disperse simultaneously. It also has a countdown feature on the display of the fridge to show how much water you have left, but it's not as effective as Precise Fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The Bosch French-door Refrigerator is a striking piece. It's designed to appear like a seamless piece of your kitchen. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also has a veggie compartment which keeps vegetables and fruits fresher for longer, and two compressors for preserving food. The ice maker we tested was one of the most efficient, and it produces the shape of a pyramid using only water. This refrigerator is a great choice for single household or kitchenettes who want an integrated look and top-of-the-line food preservation.
This refrigerator was the highest-rated refrigerator in our Refrigerators Test for various reasons. Its freezer temperatures remained constant at just above 0°F and never fluctuated by more than a fraction, this is crucial to avoid freezing burn. The fridge's refrigerator section also performed well, reaching the temperature that was set for the initial setting within a matter of hours and keeping the temperature constant over the course of our testing.
Bosch is a household name for its high-end appliances. Therefore, it's no surprise that Bosch's counter depth fridge Bosch counter depth fridge can be connected to your home Wi Fi and Bosch's platform Home Connect. This app allows you to monitor and control your fridge from your smartphone or tablet. The fridge is a bit expensive, but it comes with great features and capabilities for the price.
It is important to know the limitations of your fridge. It is possible to be creative with tall items because the fridge has a small shelf space. The shelves are not spillproof and can easily be damaged or stained by sharp objects. It's simple to remove the refrigerator trays However, be sure to clean them frequently to prevent the growth of mold.
If you're thinking of buying this refrigerator, you should also check out our review of the GE Appliances French Door Refrigerator and the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S is an excellent counter-depth refrigerator that packs a lot of storage into the frame's compact size. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. The fridge has a standard French door layout, with two rows of shelves that can be used to capture spills and a set crisper drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded down to give taller items more headroom. You'll also find a full-width drawer for deli and an inside water dispenser.
One of the great aspects of this refrigerator is that its ice maker is in the freezer, which makes it easy to transfer the ice to the refrigerator to be used when it is required. The freezer is designed with thoughtful elements, for instance, sliding drawers that can help you to organize the place of your items. It also has a large container for storing frozen food and a separate container for ice.
Smart InstaView panel is a cool feature of the refrigerator. click through the following website page allows you to control the fridge's temperature as well as lighting using your smartphone. It's a nice way to control and monitor your refrigerator, especially when you're away from home.
Although the Smart InstaView is a neat feature, it doesn't necessarily improve the overall performance of the refrigerator. The refrigerator took longer to chill food and defrost it than some others we test. This could be due to its greater capacity.
Another issue with this refrigerator is its doors. They have sunken handles on the front, which allow shorter people to easily open them from the bottom, but they're still difficult for taller people to steer shut without slamming them. It would have been much better if they had handles mounted on the front.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX fridge is a great choice for those who want to combine the look and feel of a French-door refrigerator with an efficient design. Its capacity is above average for a counter-depth model, and it cools evenly and has a good layout. It's also a little cheaper than the top counter-depth refrigerator that has an ice maker, which can make it an attractive option.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
If you're looking for a French door refrigerator that won't cost you a fortune and isn't expensive, this Frigidaire is a good choice. It's a simple fridge that might not be as eye-catching as its rivals however, it does have enough features to make it a an excellent choice. Its most important feature is the temperature adjustable drawer that helps keep food items like meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also has a large ice maker and a water dispenser.
Another nice feature is the "Chill Drawer" that sits above the two crisper bins. This drawer allows you to direct the majority of the refrigerator's cooling power to the area so that you can store foods that require special attention. This feature can be adjusted by using a slider located outside the drawer. You can also use this feature to adjust the general cooling settings for the entire fridge, however, I've found that changing the general settings tends to be more effective than specific ones.
In my tests, I discovered that the temperatures of the refrigerator were fairly consistent across various parts of the fridge. The temperatures in the top and bottom of the fridge did not vary very far from 38 degrees, and the middle of the fridge was within one degree of 36. This is a great performance but isn't quite at the top of our ratings.
This fridge has a few other neat features, including a temperature-monitoring display that alerts you to fluctuations and provides a forecast for the day ahead. You can also connect this fridge to an intelligent thermometer to get more precise readings of your fridge's internal temperature.
The exterior of the Frigidaire is made of grey-bodied stainless with a "smudge proof" finish. It repels fingerprints and streaks better than other stainless steel finishes I've tried.
Stephanie Cronk is the executive editor of Reviewed's Commerce/Product Reviews team and oversees the site's buyer's guides as well as product reviews for test products. She has over 15 years of experience in commerce and publishing mostly in retail and digital. Stephanie is passionate about finding and recommending the best products for consumers, with a a focus on home goods and technology.